SOMEWHERE, in your basement, in your attic, shoved in the back of a drawer, or maybe even in the glove box of your car, is an old and out-of-date road map. Maybe it's a map of Maryland with Spiro T. Agnew on the cover, or one that shows what this area looked like long before the Baltimore Beltway or Interstate 83 were constructed.
While most people are inclined to throw away such old, likely torn, likely misfolded and relatively useless maps, some people hang on to them, and even cherish them.
If you're one of the latter, or just have some curiosity about old road maps, you won't want to miss the first Lord Baltimore Filling Stations Road Map Swap Meet and Show from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday at the Women's Club in Catonsville. It's where road-map collectors will gather to sell or trade their wares. The public is welcome to browse and buy.
"Road maps offer nostalgia and a piece of history," says Owings Mills resident Noel Levy, organizer of the event. "Road maps represent a specific period of time of America before the interstate and the turnpike, and America before the Depression. Road maps are great sources of information. They tell you where parks are and universities and airports and hospitals. ... They have a flavor of the times."
Levy has a collection of more than 25,000 road maps, some dating to the early 1920s and '30s, and from every state in the nation and places around the world.
The 46-year-old Levy began his collection as a child riding in the family station wagon. Whenever his father would stop at a gas station to fill up the tank or let the family make a much-needed pit stop, Levy helped himself to the free maps. His father would often yell at him for taking the maps at every single stop and toss them away.
This, of course, led Levy to take even more maps. As an adult, Levy kept on collecting maps, finding them in antiques stores and flea markets. His collection has become so vast that he now runs an online map store, where collectors from around the world can choose from an inventory of more than 12,000 maps. (The 25,000 maps in his personal collection are not for sale.)
Levy doesn't think it's odd that a person might want to collect road maps. "People collect all sorts of things ... lunch boxes, Pez dispensers, Beanie Babies or old spark plugs ... this is really no different," he says.
